Quote from Mandi: "My position is that in order to inject these philosophies into a structured religion, designed for adherents instead of just a personal spirituality, is in many ways to assume that you speak for god."
I'm still not seeing the connection. The statements you quote involve describing the general beliefs of a set of people who want to form a religious community. That doesn't necessarily mean they're dictating that everyone must hold those beliefs; it just means they're trying to describe who they are. Other people who also fit the description may wish to join them. *shrug* They're not trying to force anyone to believe the way they do, they're just saying they need to work out how to describe what they do believe. I don't understand how that's presuming to speak for any god. At worst, it's presuming to speak for the community, but since this is a community discussion about the subject... Even that seems not to be what's happening.
Something else I'm not quite getting is that it seems like you think these are things structured religion just shouldn't be discussing. And yet--off the top of my head and without going through anything to check--it seems to me that many (most? all?) structured religions have some kind of concept of good/evil and the meaning of life. (Wildly differing concepts, perhaps, but they have something to say about it.) Is it your position, then, that all structured religion is bad? Or am I misinterpreting what you're saying?
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